Talk:The Swedish Chef Through the Years
Needed? As the pictures on this page demonstrate, the Swedish Chef has hardly changed at all. -- Danny (talk) 22:02, July 9, 2010 (UTC) :Not needed. —Scott (talk) 00:15, July 10, 2010 (UTC) ::We'd discussed this several times, including at the category talk page and the last time we tried to hash it out was at Talk:Prairie Dawn Through the Years. That was in February and our consensus then was to discourage new "Through the Years" pages and incorporate any significant changes into the actual character pages. This is how Danny put it: "If we do that, then we won't have to keep going through this process of figuring out who "deserves" a Through the Years page and who doesn't -- and we can encourage contributors to work instead on developing the character's actual page. What do you think? " Seven users (including self) agreed... but as happens, then the problem pages weren't merged and with nothing to stop either newbies or veterans who missed the discussion, given where it was, more sprang up. I'd been meaning to bring it up since King Goshposh Through the Years, which even incorporates King Rupert the Second which is thoroughly covered on another page, and where most of the pictures are (or should be) on Goshposh's page anyway. Scooter Through the Years also sprang up recently (though Julian created it, so it's small but better written/researched with good comparisons than most). I think a major factor to consider is the still comparatively recent changes in gallery size, so between that and the always helpful but sometimes forgotten gallery notes header, there's no reason interesting and fun to look at changes (and not just random repetition from other articles or whatever) can't be covered. It's still a lot harder with things like Kermit and Big Bird, where the changes are major but also the articles themselves are pretty long (which is kind of how the subsections sprang out to begin with, whether it's Through the Years, Filmographies, or "Elmo Books" and such, reserved for such cases) but they could be done. Basically we just need to do it (I confess, I don't think I have the time right now, outside of quickie merges and deletions of a page like this, but not the really hard pages). Zoe Through the Years is no problem (where outside of the "mini Zoe" and maybe one or two other changes, it's just been wardrobe anyway). Julian did such a good job with Scooter (not a lot of fat to be trimmed) that a merge there would be easy too. ::Maybe we could do it that way (it's what we did with episode guides way back, adding templates and "prev/next" navigation), list the pages to be deleted or merged and then people can work on what they're willing/able to do. In which case we should move it to the category talk page (as we should have done back in February), since that's another reason we forget to do things or people can't find where something was discussed or even decided. Whenever we keep the final decision and clean-up on the affected category page (or at least current events, but those are archived), it's easy to find later. It took me some doing and memory jogging to find just now. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 01:28, July 11, 2010 (UTC) :::Thanks Andrew, for directing my attention over here! First of all I would like to know whether deleting these pages helps the wiki from some executive point of view (e.g., would they need to be better frequented in order for their existence to be warranted)? I mean, is there more to it than what I might be able to realize right off, or is it mainly that some of you guys simply see them as unnecessary clutter that doesn't convey enough relevant information? Because, as much as the Chef's Through the Years page might not be necessarily "needed" for some of you, I would hate for the tidbits of information (along with the illustrations to back it up and flesh it out) to get lost. :::My reasoning, beside the fact that I'm a visual nut who loves to have things documented: We're almost as much a visual encyclopedia, as we're a textual one, and we have established this place as a reference guide for many young artists who work with and for the Muppet brand. We were even cited on several occasions as the place that BOOM's and Archaia's visual artists came to, for reference to create new content. So, I strongly plead for incorporating the pages into their respective character pages as Andrew suggested; even if these new sections would be tail-ending them. :::(Also, and you may laugh off my naïveté and ignorance of different tastes, but I won't give up this shimmer of hope that the powers that be will come across these pages and realize through direct comparison that certain characters have seen better days as far as design choices go, and that action will be taken to make them look great again. Having a direct comparison, in chronological order, right on the characters' pages might improve this chance... thinks this silly kid.) :::— The lovers, the dreamers, and me (talk) 13:20, July 11, 2010 (UTC) ::::There are two problems that I'd like to solve. One is that there are some contributors who want to make a "Through the Years" page for every single character, regardless of whether they've actually changed or not. These make for some very confusing pages, like this one, that point out "differences" that are invisible to the naked eye. At one point, we had pages for specific Frackles, and characters who only appeared in two productions. ::::The second problem is that in the cases where it's interesting, this is information that should be on the character page. The bottom of the Kermit page gets pretty text-heavy; a nice "Through the Years" gallery would be a great addition there. -- Danny (talk) 22:51, July 14, 2010 (UTC) :::::Although I'm generally fine either way, I do think it would be cool to add TTY sections to the bottom of the page (I'm thinking atleast above the "See Also" section). I think the only question I have is whether they're going to be galleries, like on the Gobo page, or templates like we already have them as. -- Jon (talk) 16:51, July 21, 2010 (UTC) :These pages are still cropping up like a rash, so I'm going to go ahead and delete it. The notes all boil down to sometimes he has a different apron, he wore gloves in one promo pic, changes in hair coloring (perceived or otherwise), and the ring which is addressed on his page. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 02:28, September 5, 2010 (UTC)